Chapter Text
Once, during the war, Tommy escaped the walls of L’manberg for the fun of it. That and he wanted to skip on whatever work Wilbur wanted to give him.
He walked and walked till he came across those fields. Wild red flowers that stretched as far as the eyes could see.
He shifts, eyeing the flowers warily. It should’ve been a magnificent sight, the field was beautiful. Instead, all Tommy felt was discomfort.
There was something eerie about the field as if it wasn’t something that was supposed to exist. He was too much of a big man to ever admit that he felt nervous over some silly little flowers.
He turns back, Wilbur’s going to be so pissed if he finds out that he went outside the walls.
Wilbur was mad, he lectured Tommy for an hour. But all of it went from one ear to the other, that unsettling feeling he had not quite leaving him yet.
Later on, he joins Tubbo, letting the older ramble about bees and flowers. On their walk, he spots something red, the same kind of flower that he saw.
Poppies. His best friend answered when he asks them what they’ve called.
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The next time he comes across the field was right after the war ended. The others were asleep the moment they hit the bed, too tired from both the fighting and the subsequent celebration. But he lies awake, too jittery to lie in bed.
So he takes a walk, and he sees the field of poppies again. The flowers near his feet seem to creep towards him as if to cling to him.
Again he feels unnerved, he leaves the field.
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He’s in the fields again the night that Wilbur died. He’s angry, rage and grief all bottled up in one body with no way to release it.
He tramples some of the flowers as he leaves.
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The next time he sees the field was during exile. It shouldn’t have made sense. Logstedshire was an island, so far removed from the Mainlands and L’manburg that the field being here shouldn’t have made any sense.
But Tommy, whose mind has been in a haze for the past week or month maybe, doesn’t realize. All he feels is longing, and this is the only thing of the past that ever came to him in exile.
He wants to sleep. He’s so tired that he feels like all he need to do was ask the flowers and they would make a bed for him.
But he doesn’t. “... Dream won’t like it if I’m away” he mutters, stumbling as he leaves.
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Two days after he dies in that prison, he’s in the field again.
Unlike before, he was no longer disturbed by the flowers. Instead, he does what he should’ve done what he intended to do since exile, he lies on the bed of poppies and sleeps.
He dreams.